to the top of the world

As I spent my last few days in the jungle my friend Ben and I went out for a trip into the jungle with Jose..This time he was sure of the way. As we set out we began walking for hours through thick jungle until finally we got to our spot to set up camp. It was this pure black sand beach on the side of a huge river.. We began imediatly to go to work and set up our shelter by gathering sticks and leaves and about 15 minutes later our shelter for the night was ready it was basic but functional to keep the rain out. we spent the rest of the day by fishing in the river and jose went out to hunt with his blowgun but never cought anything. The only food we had to eat were a couple berries, some plants, and water from vines and trees we could drink from. After relaxing and hanging out by the river we then made a fire and fell asleep. The next morning we packed up and headed back for the village, it was a really cool experience to get away from absolutley everything and just be in the middle of nowhere with only the clothes on your back, not even having a recolation of time no watches or anything...it was a truely peaceful experience.. The next day was my last night in Arutam and it was a pretty emotional one. All the villagers said they wanted to throw me a huge party for the occasion. after work and later that night almost absolutley everyone in the village came down to the volunteer house with music and everyone engaged in traditional Shuar dancing. They even made me presents. All of this was extremely flattering to me because there have been other volunteer that have been here maybe 3 or 4 weeks before me and have stayed the same amount of time i have 8 weeks total...and for them they didnt even get anything except for a handshake and them saying thanks adios and some not even coming to say goodbye for them. It made me feel really good about myself because some of the other volunteers came up to me and told me how much of an impact they thought that I made on these people. It was a pretty fun night with the volunteer house jam packed with everyone in the village and everyone dancing and music blasting. It was hard for me to say goodbye.

After I finished my time in the Amazon i headed out for this town called Latacunga and after looking around i found a guide to take me up to climb one of the worlds highest active volcanos called Cotopaxi at a staggering 5897 meters or 19347 feet high. The mountain is a pure glacier covered in snow and ice. Along with me and the guide was a french guy who did not speak any english and pretty bad spanish, and our guide only spoke spanish .. which was fine for me. This french guy went on to tell me that he has climbed a bunch of mountains and blah blah blah, whatever. After getting all of our equipment and gear such as boots, crampons, gators, ice axes, harnasses, and ropes, we set out for the mountain. we made our way up to the basecamp which was about 4800 something meters where we ate and spent the night to acclimatize. I felt pretty good with the altitude even though its almost about half the amount of oxygen as opposed to sea level. Except for in the middle of the night when i woke up and was having trouble breathing and it felt like i was suffocating, it soon passed and i was fine.. we set out at about midnight to make the ascent to the summit through the night, because its alot safer cuz the ice and snow is harder and easier for our spikes on our boots to grip into the ice and stablize ouselves. After about 4 hours into the climb this french guy started stopping for breaks more and more, i felt perfectly fine and kept wanting to continue, but this french guy would stop for 5 minutes and get up and take literally 2 more steps and collapse again. me and the guide kept yelling for him to get up but he wouldnt. he would just keep collapsing. The guide explained to us before we set out for the summit that if one of us felt sick or tired and had to return, that we ALL had to return. The guide kept asking him if he was ok and he wouldnt even reply... we were fairly close to the summit and the guide said to the french guy, "make your decision now do we return or can you continue, decide," and the french guy replied with, "I dont know." At this point i was about ready to smash this guy with my ice axe because i felt fine and the conditions wer absolutley perfect to reach the summit. This guy then said he was fine and was gonna do it. One of the scariest parts was when we had to make our way horizontal along the ice by putting our spikes into the ice sideways and walking along this ice which was about a 75 degree slope, with a deep ice crevass about a 100 feet down the slope from us. Our guide was in front then the french guy in the middle and me leading the rear. so then this french guy keeps stopping to rest and me and the guide are yelling at him, "Dont stop, dont stop," so he keeps going but with wobbly feet and stumbling. The scariest part was that i was tied to this guy with a harnass and rope, so ultimatly if he fell, i fall too and it would be death no question. But we made it and 7 hours later we reached to summit of the mountain which was one of the hardest and most rewarding things i have ever done both physically and mentally.

As for the weekend I am here in a small down called Otavalo which is home of one of the biggest markets in all of Ecuador, every saturday all these idigenous people come to this town and sell almost everything here including animals. As for tonight there is a big cockfight held in this town in a small arena. Which I am pretty excited about attending. My time here in Ecuador is almost done and soon i head down to Peru. Thank you for following this journal. Goodbye!

-Justen Jiru Ortiz